Marriott International is poised to shake up the corporate travel landscape with its Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy travel management platform, which officially rolled out earlier this week.
Designed for small-to-midsize businesses, the program is already sending ripples through an industry segment that some say has been long overdue for change.
“I think this is bold, ambitious and could potentially be a successful program, because of the state of corporate travel, which is still coming out of Covid,” said Bjorn Hanson, industry consultant and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, who also pointed to the fact that even prepandemic, companies were starting to seek out more-flexible travel management solutions.
Hanson added that many small and midsize companies have yet to build back their in-house travel management teams, which were either greatly reduced or even eliminated during the height of the pandemic.
“The really big companies still have their travel departments, [but many other] travel departments aren’t back to the staffing levels they had before,” Hanson said. “And the midsize companies especially are left trying to figure out how to manage employee travel without hiring more staff and figuring out how can they manage or set corporate travel policy. This is Marriott being an innovator in identifying this need and really trying to shift market share.”
Drew Pinto, executive vice president and chief revenue and technology officer for Marriott International, confirmed the strategic move is intended to tap into what they believe is an underserved segment. Prior to the launch of Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott did not have a comprehensive global program for small- to-midsize businesses.
“Favorable economic growth following the pandemic, along with an increase in employment rates in 2024, is driving an increase in global business travel,” Pinto said. “That being said, there remains a gap in business travel management offerings.”
Pinto cited results from a survey conducted by Wakefield Research in late May across the U.S., U.K., Canada and Mexico, which found that 75% of respondents reported experiencing frustrations with their travel booking platforms. Additionally, 56% cited difficulty in using their platform as a primary concern and 58% said that “they would rather ask for forgiveness than permission” when it came to booking outside their companies’ travel management platforms.
The survey polled 1,500 business travelers at small and midsize businesses, defining small companies as having fewer than 1,000 employees and midsize companies as those with 1,000 to 4,999 employees.
A ‘one-stop shop’ for managers
Marriott International is billing its Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy platform as a “one-stop shop,” with corporate travel managers able to book not only hotels within the Marriott portfolio but also flights, rail travel and rental cars.
Beyond making and managing these bookings, the platform offers a suite of other features. Travel managers can use Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy to customize travel policies; access real-time analytics related to travel spend and sustainability reporting; and monitor traveler health and safety via interactive maps.
Additionally, businesses have the option to integrate the program with their existing expense-management platforms, enabling them to submit payments with virtual credit cards and automate expense reports.
The platform also provides employees of small and midsize businesses with access to Marriott Bonvoy benefits like free breakfast, late checkout and mobile check-in when available.
Despite these bells and whistles, Jay Ellenby, president of Maryland-based Safe Harbors Business Travel, is unfazed by Marriott’s foray into corporate travel management.
“History has shown that anytime an airline, hotel or any other supplier makes this type of an attempt [in business travel management], they soon realize it’s a failure,” Ellenby said. “You could put a program and the technology in place, but it’s the human factor that’s significant, and oftentimes, that’s underestimated. We’re an industry that is full of complications, and when things go wrong — and they often do — how quickly is that support going to be there for them?”
NYU’s Hanson similarly acknowledged the challenges that come with corporate travel management, but he also expressed confidence in Marriott’s capacity to navigate these complexities.
“Marriott has the geographic coverage and [diverse] price levels needed for this,” he said. “It’s a fairly short list of lodging companies that could offer this kind of program.”
